Uneventful

Another long day, but a fairly uneventful one. Schooling stretched longer than usual as we had an online meeting with one of the teachers, but after that I got some work done.

I had a few pairs of earrings to make and get relisted and one choker to finish and it all got done. See, busy, if not interesting. I'm actually starting today task free. Well, immediate tasks anyway. There are still pieces in the shop that it would be wise to have more pieces made of and I think I'm actually in the mood to get some of them done. Of course we'll see how I feel about that as the day wears on. I might be feeling creative, though that's a long shot. I'm finding it hard to even think of anything to ramble on about right now, so I'll leave you early with another cat picture and again ask the Universe to send me an unexpectedly interesting weekend so I can pretend my life is worth reading about again.

A Little Busy

It was so nice to have a day with tatting tasks laid out in front of me. In fact after I wrote yesterday I even got an order for a custom pair of earrings, so I had something that actually needed to be done straight away and it was wonderful. So after schooling and a not unexpected request from my mother to run errands for her, I got some earrings made up. I should have taken pictures because they really turned out nice. They were the onion ring ones in goldenrod thread with gold beads. Not my personal color choices, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate how pretty they were. Maybe I'll make up another pair for the shop.

I spent the rest of the afternoon making up the pieces that had recently sold. That is until I got a text from the husband informing me that he was bringing by a work friend from out of town after work...15 minutes before he was leaving. So then I got to rush around like a chicken with my head chopped off cleaning up the place. No, it's not some kind of sty otherwise, but I just generally don't bother with the kids clutter, the piles of stuff on the counters or the cat's ridiculous shedding fur in our bedroom unless someone is coming by. Even then I generally have more than 20 minutes to get that all picked up and tidied. Once his friend had gone he was soundly pelted with toy balls by my minions...or children if you prefer. I'm not certain he learned his lesson though. The point is, that was the end of my productivity for the day so I still have some pieces left to make today.

I'll leave you today with a cat picture which perfectly represents the amount of help I got from the household while cleaning. Yep, that's helpful, super helpful. You see see how I get so much done now? No? Neither do I, it's a miracle that anything ever gets done, a miracle.

Bead In The Belly

Another day of headaches, but this time more metaphorical than literal. It was my duty to shuttle my mother to and from the hospital for an outpatient procedure. The to-ing in the morning interrupted schooling which made the children adverse to finishing what needed to be done. They did, but it was less than pleasant. The from-ing in the evening was full of extra drama as I was lost in the  hospital thanks to high school volunteers who sent me all about and then for extra fun, the hospital called after I had fetched my mother because they had forgotten to give my us the discharge forms. This meant I had to go back to get them and take them to my mother who, by the way, lives across town. Why can't anything be simple?

Between all that though I managed to do something slightly productive, I made another Instructable. Something old and something new at the same time. I did one on the simple spider whose pattern I've shared repeatedly, but I added the bead belly variation which allowed me to teach how to put a bead in the center of a ring with needle tatting...my version anyway. You can find the Instructable here: Tiny Tatted Spiders.

I'm sort of hoping that I get some nice quiet time soon so I can do a video on the bead technique with the needle. Though I should probably check youtube first and see if one already exists first. There's no point in doing one if someone already did it, right? Plus, finding quiet time around here is like finding a mythical lost city.

I finally made a sale of items I can remake last night. It's been painfully dead in the shop lately, add to that my first customer return in a really long time and I've been feeling particularly bummed about the shop lately. I'm sure all the headache nonsense might have a little to do with that, but I was just plugging along, waiting patiently for an uptick. I'm hoping it comes soon so I can start complaining about too much to do instead of too little.

Ugh

So it turns out that when you basically have an all day sort of headache, creativity is nigh on impossible. The advil kept it under control but it was there all day. It was joined later by a lovely new cold sore which did nothing to improve my mood. I'm guessing that my body is fighting off some illness or other and though it's winning, I get the consolation prizes of the headache and cold sore. The up side is that I appear to not be sick otherwise...for now anyway.

The only thing I did get up to besides laundry, dishes, babysitting my nieces and schooling, was getting the new triforce listed. I was going to simply hang it from a jumpring at the top corner and string it on a ribbon, but it just didn't look quite right. Maybe the design is just too big for that, or maybe I just like to make things more complicated. So instead I hung it from brass chain on the sides. I think it looks more complete this way. Whether or not it will find a home like this is another question entirely.

I tried in the afternoon, before my babysitting charges arrived, to work on the devil horns idea, but I failed miserably at my first two attempts. That would be the allusion to impossible creativity in my first sentence. There's still a few more ways I'd like to try to make it happen, but I completely gave up and I think I'm going to need a little more time between attempts if I really want it to work. I also need to make sure that all these physical annoyances are done with me first as well. I still have the faintest twinge of a headache this morning and the cold sore is growing strong, so I don't have high hopes for today at all. Add that to the list of annoying errands I have to do today and honestly I'm surprised I bothered to haul myself out of bed at all. I just realized how much of a downer this post has got be for you to read. Sorry about that. I'll try for some sunshine and lollipops for tomorrow. You hear that Universe, sunshine and lollipops and good, good things.

Weekend Recap

It's never a good sign when you wake up on a Monday morning with a headache. It's doubly bad when you have just woken up out of a dream in which you were angry with your children for not listening to you. So now I'm in an unpleasant mood with a headache on top. The outlook for the day is officially grim. I'll back up now though and recount the weekend as best as I can under the circumstances.

Friday was a field trip to Columbia State Park, the gold rush town I mentioned on Friday. Fun as it was, there was a whole lot of walking in the unseasonably warm weather and when we got home, I had zero energy to do anything. This picture of the youngest child asleep on the way back perfectly illustrates my energy level for the remainder of the day.

Saturday we headed out of town to go shopping for the husband. He needed some semi formal wear for an upcoming wedding since he owns nothing besides t-shirts and his work clothes. Usually his work clothes stand in when he needs to dress nice, but we thought he could use an upgrade. After a wonderful lunch it was hours of walking back and forth across the mall and leaving with a list of things to order online because his size was absent in the things he liked. On the plus side I never have to feel bad about taking my time shopping for myself ever again.

When we got home I was exhausted, but it was early and I was inspired to make something. Through a strange series of 'this reminds me of that' I decided to make a tatted triforce. When I posted it on the facebook page without naming it at all, I was gratified that many people knew exactly what it was. The children loved it too though, so I spent quite some time making one up for each of them to...play with. Hopefully my mood and headache will subside long enough to get a jump ring on it, photograph and list this one as a pendant today. Since the pattern is made up of a only slightly modified version of a very familiar vintage motif, I might even get this one written up and through on Instructables soon as well, though probably not today. Today is likely a wash, so I'm not even going to bother with a list of tasks. I'm just going to ask the Universe to bring it up from here.